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Again
SPOILERS
Finished it myself about a week ago and had too many thoughts for words initially. The initial excitement's faded a bit but I thought I'd try and address a few points. One of the first things I thought was how quick will it date - what'll it look like in ten years from now? Interesting to consider with something so of the moment. Mind you, Neuromancer still works (for me anyway) almost 20 years later so maybe it won't be too much of a problem.
First big point - something picked up the William Gibson board referenced above. I felt like he might have had more to say about the novel's central conceit, Cayce's ability to almost skry the videodrome of fashion and media, her and reaction to logos - I mean, the title is "Pattern Recognition" yet he doesn't seem to fully explore this idea and it's potential significance, and it's something that's been cropping up throughout his work. You've got Gentry in Mona Lisa Overdrive, trying to discern the shape of Cyberspace, and you've got Laney in the second trilogy with his ability to pull patterns ( discern "nodes") in the infosphere that surrounds him. It's a very weird idea, a weird post-human version of the sort of autisc abilities that Oliver Sach's writes about. Why this ability? Why this concern with shape, with discerning emerging trends? I fel like there's something quite profound here I haven't quite got my head round yet. Reminds me of Gematria, bringing meaning into being where perhaps there was none.
The second big point kind of relates to this, revolving around the films. Firstly (perhaps obviously) I felt the significance and power Gibson was telegraphing into these descriptions could only work in text. Can a fragment of random imagery be this powerful, this suggestive? Or is a description of a mystery always going to be more evocative than knowing the thing itself?
Secondly, I thought it was very interesting the films come through a a mute auetuer. If the filmaker (I've forgoten her name and lent book out - bollocks) had been able to talk, cognitize etc. in the same way as the rest of us, the constructon of the film would have been open to rational inquiry and thereby lost a lot of it's power. As it's is it's like a flash of gnostic inspiration, coming from a place unseen and inaccessible. Exactly the same scene is played out in front of Marly in Count Zero, when something animates the machinery that constucts the Cornell-type boxes Marly's has been hunting. I half- remember a lovely line from this part of CZ: In response to Marly's feelings of sadness towards the boxes, something says, "these songs are of time and memory - the sadness is in you". I know I've mangled that quote, but again, we've got the evocation of some sort of mysterious force or agency, moving through technology, and refracting back our emotions to us. Something profound and metaphoric about us and technology is being said here, but I'm not quite sure what it is. This is one of the things I really love about Gibson's writing - these odd emotional tones and half-notes he seems to get so right. Be very interested to hear what anyone else has to say on these points.
Final (minor) point - overall, what I loved about the book (and all his writing) - it reminds you of how just how bloody weird the present day is, how odd this strange technolgical contraption we've erected around ourselves is.
He said in an interview in this weekend's Guardian:
.. those characters ilustrate the impact of technology on society, and I sometimes find myself thinking there isn't anything other than the impact of technology on society - possibly, that has been more significant historically than any sort of political thought, in terms of bringing us to where we are now."
That's why I love his stuff - it makes me remember this, and enjoy it. |
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